Mirrors Lie
by Evil Cosmic Triplets
Summary: The man in the mirror staring back at him is a stranger. The man that Steve tells him inhabits the skin he's in, is a stranger, too, but there's a part of him that desperately wants to be this Danny that Steve keeps calling him. Amnesia fic. Rated for allusions to torture. Though there is mention of a marriage, there is no actual slash in this story.
1. What Lies in Mirrors

**Disclaimer:** I do not own the characters of this work of fiction, and am not making a profit, monetary or otherwise, through writing this.

 **A/N:** Happy New Year's, IreneClaire and Swifters, and everyone else.

* * *

Eyes cold with hatred stare back at him from the mirror.

"This isn't my face," he says, confused, angry, brain struggling to put a name to the face that's looking back at him.

It's clear upon closer inspection that the stranger staring at him from the other side of the mirror has been through some kind of hell. He's not sure if the man has made it back yet.

Hair, little more than stubble, covers a skull scarred with thick, ugly slashes, and the jagged zigzag remnants of a haphazard stitching job.

He thinks he remembers trying to patch a jacket by hand once. Sewing machines do a much better job. He knows that doctors and nurses could do a better patch up, even without the aid of a machine. Deft, sure fingers paired with hands that do not shake.

The apparation in the mirror shows evidence of starvation in gaunt, sallow cheeks, skin stretched taut over sharp bones. Starvation feels like a dog eating its own vomit, puking it up again and again.

Sunken eyes, dull blue in color, stare back at him, make him think of sleep deprivation. He knows what it's like to be tired and not able to sleep. Loud music set on repeat, blaring from unseen speakers. Babies crying. Grown men on their knees, begging, weeping, eyes dry and bulging.

Who _is_ this man in the mirror?

He wants to put his fist through the mirror image, but some part of him knows that it would be foolish to do that. He'll just make himself bleed, and earn seven years of bad luck on top of that.

"Not worth it," he murmurs to himself, to the stranger in the mirror. The stranger mocks him, lips moving silently forming the very words he is.

"What's not worth it?"

Another face, stranger's hand on his shoulder, joins the one reflected to him in the mirror. This, too, is the face of a stranger. Eyes warm, concerned, fill with compassion as they assess the hard eyes of the other face, and the hand on the shoulder squeezes.

Claustrophobia. Fear of tight spaces. Fingers closing around a neck, constricting air. It's hard to breathe.

Shrugging, he closes his eyes, turns away from the mirror before he opens them again. It isn't telling him the truth. Won't tell him who he is, what he's doing here.

"Nothing," he says, voice cold and gruff. Not his voice. Not his face. Not him.

"Danny," the other stranger says, voice soft and sad. _Hurt._

Knives, sharp and biting into flesh that simply gives way. _Pain._

"Not Danny," he says in a rough voice that's not his own.

Rough like calloused hands skimming over raw skin, flaking, peeling, rubbing salt into wounds.

"Okay," the other says, face unreadable. "You remember my name?"

"No," he says.

Disappointment skitters across the other's face, but it's quickly followed by a smile.

 _Sad._

 _Hurt._

 _Alone._

A turtle on its back, struggling to right itself. Failing.

"Steve," the other says. "I'm Steve."

"Steve." The name tastes like copper on his tongue as he repeats it.

Blood stained teeth, lips. Choking. Cloying. He can't breathe. As he swallows, the copper taste of pennies glides down his throat and churns in his stomach like the steady beat of heavy metal music drumming in his ears.

"Yes," Steve says. "How about if we go out onto the lanai, watch the sunset?"

Nodding, he follows Steve out of the bathroom, down the stairs, out the backdoor.

 _Lanai._

 _Porch._

 _Backyard._

 _Barbecue._

The scent of burning flesh is rancid in his nostrils. He gags and chokes. He's a vegetarian.

Memory tickles the edges of his mind, teasing. He pushes the memory aside. It's giving him a headache. He can feel the sharp edge of a machete as it cuts into his skull, shearing him like a sheep.

 _Bleeding._

 _Copper._

 _Fire._

He doesn't want to burn again. Bile searing his esophagus on its way out of a stomach eating its own acid.

The ocean, a stone's throw away from Steve's backyard, glows orange in the sun's sinking rays. He watches. Waits. Counts backwards from a hundred. Burns the sun into his retinal memory, hoping it will draw out the truth of who he is, what he's doing here with Steve.

 _Afterimage._

 _Aftermath._

The sky bleeds while the sun sinks, swallowed by an ocean of stars, sputtering and dying on the horizon.

He was a bloated fish once. Washed up on shore. Drunk on briny water. Dead until life was breathed into his lungs. A lone starfish thrown back into churlish waters, he drowned again, and again, as a gnarled, scarred hand drew him out only to toss him back.

Steve sits beside him, toes curled in the cool, wet sand, arms hugging knees to chest, chin resting on a knobby knee. Eyes focused on the horizon, Steve shifts, body heat burning like wildfire through their connection - stranger to Steve, Steve to stranger.

They've done this before. He's as certain of it as he is of the fact that the face reflected back to him from Steve's eyes is not him.

"Not me," he says, voice rusty from disuse.

"Danny?" Steve's voice reflects the warmth of the fading sunlight, the shiny rosy pink that paints the water which laps at the shore in shimmering pastels.

"Not Danny," he says. "Not...me."

Words are as fleeting as the sun's light at dusk. Tricky. Difficult to grasp.

"I don't understand," Steve says, voice strained, brow furrowed.

Chest tight, he chases after the waning warmth of Steve's eyes, hoping, wanting, needing to remember something. Something other than razors, sharp as kitten's claws, puppy's teeth before they learn not to bite so hard.

"Skin and bones," he says, knowing the words will mean nothing to Steve. "Skin and bones. Not Danny. Not me." He thumps his chest with a fist, breath catching in his lungs as he fights through a blind, nameless panic.

"Skin and bones," Steve repeats, lifting his head, looking at the rising moon, releasing his knees and letting his feet dig deeper into the sand.

He was a hermit crab once. Digging deep, trying to hide himself in the sands of time. Of memory, fleeting.

 _Tall grass, green and bright._

 _Lawn._

 _A child's laughter, happy and unfettered._

 _Grace._

 _Charlie._

"Skin and bones," he says, nodding, watching the moon dip into the ocean of stars and paint a white path across the rippling waters.

 _A bride's veil._

 _A groom's white suit._

 _Golden bands of promises exchanged._

 _Second hand wedding vows._

 _A ceremony._

 _A kiss._

 _A hand exchanged for a life ripped away._

He is a bloated whale washed up on shore.

"Not skin and bones," Steve says, voice hoarse, jaw tense, hand reaching and touching, holding.

"Danny," Steve says, voice hard, determined. "Love of my life. Partner. My world."

He was a shadow once. Sinking into the darkness. Hiding. Hoping. Waiting. Wasting away to nothing but the sketch of a man.

"Come back to me," Steve says, begging, hand squeezing, thumb tracing a nasty scar that runs across the palm of the stranger's hand.

"Please." Steve's voice breaks, and something inside him moves.

He wants to return to Steve, to have what this Danny he keeps hearing about had.

Nodding, he squeezes Steve's hand, digs his toes in the sand — it's cool and doesn't make him think of harsh words or earsplitting sound waves splashed across nerves tight as a bowstring that's about to snap — and wonders if he can inhabit the same skin that Danny once did. If he can mimic Danny's life and jump in where Danny left off.

"I'll try," he whispers, heart hammering loud enough for the stars to hear if they should choose to listen.


	2. Shattered

**Disclaimer:** See initial chapter.

 **A/N:** This was inspired by the writing prompts, shattered and oily, from the Word Nerds virtual write-in, and written in approximately thirty minutes. Thanks for reading it through for me, IreneClaire, and catching an error, as well as assuring me that this was not rubbish. I apologize for any errors that remain. There is some kissing at the end. There aren't really answers in this. Danny's just trying to figure out how he can be whole again.

* * *

"Danny?"

Steve's voice comes to him through a tunnel. The name Steve's calling rings in his ears, but he can't draw his eyes away from the face, the eyes, the nose, staring back at him from the fractured pieces of the shattered mirror.

Bloody knuckles, bruised, tremble, and he pulls his gaze away from the broken mirror to stare a million miles away at the blood that drips from his hand onto the tiled floor.

Everything is so white.

It's blinding.

He can't think straight.

Shattered.

Glass embedded into his skin.

Blood.

He flinches when a hand lands on his shoulder, looks into the concerned eyes of the man he now knows is Steve as reflected by the jagged shard of a mirror.

 _Blue._

 _Ocean._

 _Sky._

Someone's favorite color. The name is on the tip...the tip of something, but he can't reach it.

"Danny, what happened?" Steve's voice draws him out of himself, forces him to crawl out of the pieces of shattered mirror strewn about him, embedded into his knuckles.

"It broke," he says, voice dull, unable to communicate how the mirror had been broken. He doesn't have the words.

 _Pathetic._

 _Sad._

 _Broken._

He shakes, wonders if he'll shatter too if he shakes hard enough.

Skin on fire with an icy heat that makes his insides shiver, he relishes Steve's grounding touch, wonders if this Danny he's taken up residence inside of had found Steve's touch to be as comforting as he does.

The eyes, Steve's eyes - warm steel beneath a setting sun - close and he can feel Steve drawing a breath in, calling upon patience, before his eyes open again, and then they're staring at each other through the reflection in a shard of bloodied mirror lying on the floor at their feet.

"Here, let me help you," Steve says, voice soft, fingers firm, yet gentle on his wrist as Steve guides him from the bathroom to the bedroom beyond.

He feels like an imposter as he sits on the edge of the bed. Danny's bed.

Steve kneels before him, eyes locked on the injured hand as he deftly removes the tiny pieces of shattered mirror from the bruised and bloodied knuckles, touch feather light and more intimate than the situation warrants. He shivers, sucks his bottom lip between his teeth, and blushes when Steve's gaze travels upward, forehead crinkled in concern, eyes filled with worry.

"You okay, Danny?" Steve asks.

He swallows. Nods. He's not okay.

He's broken.

Shattered.

A mess.

Steve offers him a smile before bending back to the task at hand. "Doesn't look too deep," Steve says, rocking back on his heels to examine his work, turning the hand back and forth to make sure he's removed every bit of glass.

The discarded pieces sparkle in the beam of light that seeps in past a crooked slat in the blinds, catches his eye, and for a moment, he's lost in the fire of the reflected sun, misses Steve's question, and is pulled back when a hand cups his face.

"Are you okay?" Steve asks.

"I'm fine," he says, voice rough.

Steve nods, smiles, stretches his back, knees cracking as he rises to his full height, towering above him.

"Sit tight," Steve says, wrapping the bloodied hand in a towel, placing it on a knobby knee. "I'll be right back with something to take care of this."

He nods, wants to say something like, _don't bother_ , or, _I'll clean it up_ , or, _don't go_. Instead, he watches Steve leave, and counts the seconds that pass between Steve's leaving and returning with each breath that he takes.

Forty-two breaths.

He's no longer shaking by the time that Steve finishes sweeping up the mess in the bathroom, mopping up the blood, removing the shards of glass that hadn't fallen from the base of the ruined mirror, placing them carefully in a waste basket.

Steve says nothing while he works. The silence is a gulf between them, shattered only by the clinks of glass that hit the bottom of the metal waste basket.

After sanitizing the bathroom counter and floor, Steve returns to the bedroom, a determined look on his face as he once more kneels and takes the injured hand into his own, unwraps it and inspects it closely. Eyes narrow and crinkle at the edges, lips form a thin line, calloused fingers brush across the now swollen knuckles. He doesn't flinch away.

"I don't think you'll need stitches," Steve says several breaths later. "We'll have to keep an eye out for infection."

Nodding, he closes his eyes when Steve starts to dab at the wounds peppering his knuckles with disinfectant wipes, cleaning out the wounds, making sure that an infection doesn't set in. He's familiar with infections. They burn and itch, make you wish you were dead.

He focuses on breathing, tries to push the stinging pain, and disjointed memories, away from his consciousness as Steve works. He bites his bottom lip and holds his tongue, doesn't pull his hand away or scream when the ghosts of memories tug at him and insist that he fight back.

The stinging sensation soon gives way to something far more soothing, and he opens his eyes. Steve's bent over his hand, tongue poking out between his lips as he works on rubbing an antibiotic ointment into the lacerated skin. It feels oily, and he wants to pull his hand away, but doesn't, because Steve's hands are warm and comforting and don't remind him of anything bad. They keep the ghost memories at bay, frighten them away.

Heart in his throat, he swallows as he takes in the arch of Steve's exposed back, the taut muscles that ripple as he works, and make movies of the tattoos that cover the man's back, shoulders, and bulging biceps.

Breath stolen at the sight of the man kneeling before him, he's hit by an epiphany - Steve is beautiful.

Steve is beautiful, and the man loves him. Loves this Danny that he's supposed to be. The Danny he might have been once upon a time. The Danny that he could perhaps be one day.

"I'm sorry," he says when Steve wraps his hand in a bandage, finishing up, squeezing his knee as he rises.

"It's okay," Steve says, not understanding, thinking he's talking about the mirror. "Accidents happen."

He shakes his head, reaches for Steve's hand with his uninjured hand, squeezes it tightly, hoping to communicate through touch what he can't put into words. Words are monsters hiding in the shadows, staying just out of reach.

"Not the mirror," he says, pointing to himself, stabbing a finger into Steve's chest. "Me. You. Shattered." His voice is a piece of broken glass.

Frowning, Steve's eyes search his for several breaths, and then Steve smiles, pulls him to his feet, cups his face, and leans in to brush lips across lips.

"Not shattered," Steve says, resting their foreheads together. "Just...a little lost and maybe a little broken, but not shattered."

Shuddering, he nods, and licks his lips, presses them tentatively against Steve's, wondering, hoping, praying that Steve will allow him this, even if he isn't quite Steve's Danny, and will never be, even if, one day he slips into Danny's life, accepting it as his own.

Steve's lips curve upward and part, hand going to the back of his neck, thumb kneading at a knot there, keeping them close. And they kiss, no rush, leisurely as a Sunday afternoon.

Something inside of him shatters then - he's filled with a flood of emotions - like the mirror that he'd put his fist through in an effort to reach out to the Danny that Steve insists he is; and he knows, without a doubt, that this is what he wants, what he needs - Steve.

Danny, whoever that was, whoever that will be.

 _Steve and Danny._

 _Together._

 _Whole._

 _One._

They part, breathing heavy, eyes locked. Steve brushes a thumb over his lip, and he shudders, blinks away the jumbled thoughts that clutter his mind and give him headaches; the somersaulting butterflies that crowd his stomach.

"Danny?" Steve asks, voice low and throaty.

"Yes," he says, wrapping himself in that name like a blanket, allowing it to comfort and warm him. Whoever this Danny was, maybe he won't mind too terribly much if he takes up the mantle, takes over where Danny - Steve's Danny - left off.

"Yes," he says with more determination, hoping that Steve understands what he can't voice because words are oily, slippery things, like canned sardines.

Steve smiles and presses a kiss to the side of his mouth, breathes deeply and pulls him into a crushing hug, kisses the top of his head.

"Whole, broken or shattered, I will always love you, Danno."

A breath, two, three, pass as he searches his mind for the words to respond, finds one. "Ditto."

Chuckling, Steve wraps his arms around him and holds him close.


End file.
